My Personal Finance Confession: Retirement Funds
BeThisWay at Are You Going To Be This Way The Rest Of The Time I Know You (whew!) started her personal finance confession project to get something off her chest - she has no idea what the interest rates on her credit cards are. Since she pays them off every month, it hasn’t mattered, but you never know if it might become important and she wants to know she has one with a decent rate just in case the unthinkable happens. She tagged a number of other people to do the same and confess something, including me. And so here it is, my personal finance confession:
Although we do save for retirement, we don’t save enough (not the confession part) and I still have almost zero idea how much we have saved, and what we actually need to save to be able to retire (there’s the pesky confession).
This is something I keep meaning to do and get never get around to. I know how much (approximately) is in my IRA, but I really have no idea what is in my spouse’s 401K, and also, although we’ve increased the contributions to it, I don’t really know how close we are to contributing enough for a comfortable retirement. The idea of it still intimidates me so I keep putting it off and putting it off until I just don’t get to it at all.
I don’t really think that is a surprise to my regular readers, but when you discuss every aspect of your finances every day online there isn’t much you haven’t covered. I’m hoping this kicks me in the butt to get calculating and figuring and actually start making a plan and some progress. I work best with a plan.
So, what about you? What’s your personal finance confession? I’m going to tag five bloggers but if you aren’t tagged, feel free to share in the comments or on your own blog and when I am back from my colonoscopy, I’ll put a link to you at the end of the post. 
I am tagging:
- Gather Little By Little
- Being Frugal
- Cash Money Life
- Blueprint for Financial Prosperity
- Five Cent Nickel
What’s your financial confession?
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June 23rd, 2008 at 10:48 am
Personally,
I think that saving ; being thrifty is an virtue.
It’ll be always handy to had some savings by your side.
June 23rd, 2008 at 11:41 am
I’ll join in on part of the confession. I don’t know how much we need to save for retirement. I know I need a lot, but there are tons of formulas and theories out there.
There is the save 15% theory, the 75/80/85% of your income until you are 85/90 theory, and then there is the one that says you’ll need less than that because your expenses will fall through the floor compared to what they are now. Add that to the fact that my husband and I are both in our mid/late 20’s and our salaries have increased greatly in the last 3 years, and add the prospects of starting a family soon and I have no idea how much I need to save for retirement!
So what are we doing? Right now he’s putting away 15% (including company match) into his 401k. I’m contributing enough to get the match at my company and trying to max out a Roth IRA. We’re focused on paying off student loans in the next 13 months and then we’ll probably bump up the retirement contributions a bit.
June 23rd, 2008 at 12:30 pm
You’re not alone. I can’t get either TIAA-CREF or Fidelity to send me statements of my 403b holdings. Most recent statement from either came in spring 2007. I can’t get into their sites because I have no PIN number and no password. They don’t answer the phone, they don’t respond to e-mail queries, and they don’t reply to snail-mail letters.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:33 pm
I love writing about personal finance, but dealing with my own finances also stresses me out. A confession that I have to make is that I have no clue when my student loans will be paid off. I really need to focus on this and find out when me day of freedom will be here.
June 23rd, 2008 at 3:41 pm
It’s great that you are saving for retirement but you do need to get a handle on where you are at. My personal financial confession. I made a plan,followed good advice and with a little luck retired 15 years ago at age 49. The Hoss and Mrs. Hoss love being able to do what we want when we want. Please make a plan and stick to it; it is worth it.
The Hoss
June 23rd, 2008 at 7:52 pm
I have socked away what I feel comfortable with, but I have no idea how much I will actually need…
And depending on who I listen to/read, I don’t have enough….. I am being told that I cannot retire on $1000/month of income….. and I say, why not? I live on it now!
So… who knows if I have enough or not !
Actually - $1000/income in retirement is my safety plan. I figure that I will have that much without touching my IRA and my investment income - so I think I will have more to burn in retirement than I do now.
One can only hope.
June 24th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
I teach people to manage their money, track their spending and reduce debt - but I don’t track our spending to the penny! I know around what we spend but not exactly. I have become lazy about it as we don’t have debt and are saving money each month!